Road construction pace slowed down?

Road length of 4944 km constructed in 8mFY18

Road construction in the country in the first eight months of current fiscal i.e. April-November 2017 period by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL) and Ministry of Road Transport & Highway as well as State Public Works Department was 4944 kms which is about 61% of the 8142 km of road construction done in 2016-17. The target road construction for FY18 was 15000 km. Road construction per day works out to about 20.4 km compared to 22.3km/day in 2016-17. The monthly average road length constructed in 2017-18 declined to 412 km/month compared to 678.5 km in entire 2016-17. According to the industry the role out of GST effective July 1, 2017 has also slowed down the execution in Q2FY18. Typically as road construction activity in first half of any fiscal will be weak due to monsoon disturbance and will pick up in second half of the fiscal and hence comparison on annual basis is more opt.

Contracts awarded in the first eight months period of current fiscal is abysmally low at 2917 km compared to award of road length of 14000 km in 2016-17. The target of road contract awarding for FY17-18 was 25000 km and with just four months to go that target seems unlikely.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News